Growing and producing your own food in a garden is not a clean process, but it gives you peace of mind, clean and healthy food along with invaluable psychological balance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the other hand you may have a garden for photoshoots and show off in design magazines, that doesn’t produce anything and costs a lot to maintain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You need to get your hands and feet dirty. Have manure, cuttings, compost space, irrigation pipes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Your garden’s land to be messy from plowing and hoeing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To make the most of every inch of soil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To ally yourself with nature and go with its flow and rhythm, not against it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To take advantage of the microclimate and what the natural landscape has to offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can’t have a “showcase” garden if you are growing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Your garden is an organic construction site. And all construction sites have their clutter because they produce work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Your garden to the uninitiated people will be dirty, messy, unkempt. A mess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But to you it will be beautiful, natural, productive site. A true paradise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Everything will have its place in this garden. Ants, spiders, ladybugs, praying mantises, bees, worms, birds, will be welcome and proof of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To the neighbors all this evidence of life, they may be perceived as annoying pests, candidates for extermination as alien beings in their garden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But there is the other point of view that sees the above garden as a garden to be pitied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The sudden “economic growth” (on borrowed money) that took place in Greece in the years between 1985 and 2009 created a generation of “neighbors” who tried to proclaim their “success” and social status through their homes and gardens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To renounce their roots in the village and the agricultural works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The above economic “development” was in the majority of cases based on easy money. And we know that easy money does not come with work. It comes in other ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The lack of real education and consideration of the whole thing has helped a lot in this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So many “neighbors” sprang up with “villas”, lawns, fountains. The surrounding area, instead of a garden, became a sterile, clean, artificially landscaped environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Neighbors” with artificially landscaped environments, alien to the natural landscape, requiring a lot of money and effort (by crews) to maintain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Exotic gardens in Mediterranean environments. Alien to the Mediterranean landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gardens that require waste of precious water (often from illegal drilling) and futile labor to maintain. A constant battle against nature<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Environments and gardens that do not produce. But they consume.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gardens that an accountant would add to liabilities rather than assets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gardens that are not an investment in creation and productivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gardens that are liabilities in the home economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You and these people are neighbors. So whose neighbor’s garden is pitiful after all?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Growing and producing your own food in a garden is not a clean process, but it gives you peace of mind, clean and healthy food along with invaluable psychological balance. On the other hand you may have a garden for photoshoots and show off in design magazines, that doesn’t produce anything and costs a lot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":15760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":2,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[63,64,845],"class_list":["post-2115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-garden","tag-cultivate","tag-garden","tag-neighbor"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSo, whose garden is to be pitied?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n